It’s been two years since I first met my Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapist. I tell myself I am much better than the day I met her, but I don’t always believe it. I still have moments when I completely shut down and feel unattached to anyone and anything. I still sometimes find myself uncontrollably crying. My entire body will still periodically start violently shaking, and the brain-piercing headaches still show up. However, it happens much less often, and the episodes are shorter. I still don’t always know what triggers these reactions, but I now know what they are, and I am able to find my way back from them more quickly.
I first started EMDR after a visit to the emergency room for what I thought was a heart attack. My wife Lori had died two years earlier after a 23-year pugnacious fight with a malignant brain tumor. She was 28 years old when she was first diagnosed. We were told she would be dead by 30, but she refused to go without a fight, and she refused to let the treatments or the physical and cognitive issues she experienced get in the way of how she wanted to live her life.
Lori started her own company, skied, hiked and traveled the world. And, in exchange for living a life filled with adventure, she accepted that she would periodically have a seizure and collapse on the street wherever she had been standing.
